


In the Museum of Hope and Despair

by loosenoodlepoodledoodle



Series: Meaningful Works [8]
Category: CoCoSoRi (Band), FIESTAR, LOONA (Korea Band), PinkFantasy, TWICE (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Angst, Despair, Gen, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Horror, Sad, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-11-08 21:16:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20842124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosenoodlepoodledoodle/pseuds/loosenoodlepoodledoodle
Summary: The Bangtan Boys are back, this time in a surreal adventure that will change their lives forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by Sori X Folded Dragons "I Am Not Alone."
> 
> Go watch it:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX1pD-0lMeI

RM blinked open his eyes, and he couldn’t see right away what a strange place he and the Boys had arrived at. The room was dim, and he was leaning back in an old-fashioned but quite comfy plush leather chair. Looking around, he saw the rest of BTS sitting or reclining in similar furniture. There were antique electric lamps sitting on end tables near every chair and sofa, but they were all turned off. Instead, the illumination in the room seemed to be coming from sconces mounted along the walls, which were strangely distant. The lights themselves had a peculiar quality, flickering like candles would. But they had a strange white color to them, and RM could not figure out how this was possible.

He reached out to turn on the lamp nearest him, but he misjudged his own state of mind and fell forward clumsily. He struck the lamp with his outstretched hand, knocking it off the end table. The shattering crash it made brought everyone out of their stupor.

“There you go again, NamJoon!” cried out Suga. “No way am I fixing one of your messes this time.”

“Sorry,” muttered RM, in his daze.

J-Hope stood up in front of him. He was a little woozy, but otherwise fine.

“Hey, are you drunk?” he asked.

RM had to think about this. “Uh, maybe?”

J-Hope smirked slyly. “Want me to sober you up?”

RM could not predict what he was planning to do. “Okay. How are you gonna do that?”

The slap J-Hope gave him was so loud, it cleared the minds of the others completely.

“What the fuck, man?” shouted RM. J-Hope practically danced away, laughing. His revelry was cut short, as RM easily caught up. Although he knocked down another lamp on his way.

“Cut it out, you two,” said Jin. He was looking very serious.

“Where are we?” asked Jungkook.

“Good question,” said RM. He let go of J-Hope. “This place looks like an old mansion.”

“Yeah,” said V, “but, like, a fake one. Like it’s part of an amusement park ride.”

“What’s with those candles?” asked Jimin.

They followed him over to the nearest wall sconce. It was made of brass, but there was no bulb, no wire, not even a puddle of wax. Instead, a heatless white flame flickered and glowed about a centimeter above its surface. There was no sound, no ash, and no smoke. For a moment they thought they could smell something, but they soon realized it wasn’t coming from the light sources.

“Hey, there’s a door over there,” pointed out Suga.

They walked over to it. It was entirely black, and much taller than they were. Heat radiated from it, and its wrought-iron handles seemed to faintly glow.

“Do you think we should call the fire department?” asked V.

But they found that none of them had their phones.

“What should we do?” asked Jin, timidly.

“I don’t know,” admitted RM.

_“DoN’t oPen iT.”_

They jumped in unison.


	2. Chapter 2

“Who are you?” they asked the interloper. She stood on a grand staircase that they hadn’t noticed before. RM had the unsettling suspicion that it had not been in the room a moment ago.

_ “I am DaEwaNG.”_

They could see that she was a young woman, as her gothic outfit showed off her curves and legs. But she was wearing something that in another time and place would seem so ridiculous, but here and now was incredibly creepy.

It was a giant pink rabbit head.

_Shades of Silent Hill_, thought RM. He asked her, “What’s with this door?”

_ “ThAt leAdS to thE maLe WinG. It’S cuRreNtly sEaleD ofF, on aCcoUnt of _BuRnInG SUN.”

The name gave them chills. They wanted nothing to do with it.

“Where are we, miss?” shouted Jin.

_“yOuArE iN thE MuSeuM of HoPe anD DesPaIR, mR. kiM,”_ said Daewang. Her voice was filtered through some sort of synthesizer. It made RM think of those disgusting warning pictures on cigarette boxes.

“Is this some kind of TV show?” asked Jungkook.

_“nO,”_ said Daewang.

The Boys huddled together.

“Are we supposed to take this chick seriously?” asked J-Hope.

“I don’t know,” said RM. “I mean, this kind of feels like the sort of prank the boss man would play on us. He’s done weird shit in the past.”

“Yeah,” said Jimin, “remember that time he told you the band wasn’t working out and he gave you the choice of sticking with us or going solo?”

RM remembered, all right. “I do, but to roofie us for some weird reality show seems beyond even him.”

No one could think of any other explanation, however, so they just shrugged and tried to roll with it. They stood up straight to exit their huddle, turned to face the stairs, and screamed bloody murder when they found Daewang standing directly behind them.

“How’d you do that?” demanded Suga, in a panic.

_“i WaLk FasT,”_ said Daewang. She turned around and practically glided back to the foot of the stairs.

_“Are YoU cOmiNg tO sEe tHe MusEuM?”_ she asked. _“TheRe arE NO oThEr dOOrs DoWn HeRE.”_

They looked around and were surprised to see it was true. Then, timidly, they went to her side across the room.

There were more of the strange light fixtures along the flight. “What are these?” asked V.

_“CoRpSe-LigHtS,”_ said Daewang.

The Boys shivered involuntarily.

At the top of the stairs was a landing. Three passages led away, each dimmer than the lobby below they had woken up in.

Daewang explained. “_THis PAsSAGe LeAdS TO the HaLL of MeDioCriTy. ThE NeXt oNe leAds TO the HALL of fUTiliTy. ThE FINal oNe gOEs to THE Hell OF tHe spOnSoRed.”_

“Don’t you mean ‘Hall’ of the Sponsored?” corrected Suga.

She shook her head.

Only RM really understood what she meant by that last bit.

“Why would a museum have exhibits on Mediocrity and Futility?” asked Jin pointedly.

_ “dO yOu nOT REcall ThE nAMe OF this mUsEuM?”_

Most of them had already forgotten, but none of them wanted to admit it. Instead, they huddled again.

“So, what do you think?” asked RM.

“Uh, this is really weird,” said V.

“No shit, Sherlock, but I mean, what should we do?”

“Let’s just go through each hall one by one,” said J-Hope. “We can get this craziness over with as soon as possible.”

“Okay. Which one should we go with, first?”

Most of them began talking over each other. Jin and J-Hope preferred the Hall of Mediocrity, V and Suga were intrigued by the Hall of Futility, and Jungkook and Jimin were curious about the Hell of the Sponsored.

_“yoU Can sPLiT uP, yOu kNOw,”_ said Daewang. She was standing way too close to RM. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up. _“tHe hALLs loOp aRoUnD inTO eaCH oTHer. STArt wiTh wHiChEvEr OnE YOu wAnt._

_“tHeRe IS no DANgER,”_ she added, laughing quietly.

RM felt his sphincter tighten.

The Boys split into three groups. RM tagged along with Jin and J-Hope, and went off towards the Hall of Mediocrity. Daewang called after them.

_ “i’LL bE wAiTiNg…”_


	3. Chapter 3

The three of them emerged into a large room, weakly illuminated by a silver chandelier. It was truly magnificent, but it unnerved them that it was lit by those wretched corpse-lights. But here, they were a chilly shade of blue.

There were deep alcoves set into the walls. RM approached one, and realized it was a diorama, like the old ones he had seen at the Museum of Natural History in New York. But something was different about these ones.

“Are those _people_ in there?” blurted out Jin.

“If they aren’t, then that is the best holographic display I’ve ever seen,” said J-Hope.

It took RM a moment to realize what he was watching. It was a live-action version of some obscure K-pop girl group. He could immediately figure out what was wrong with it.

“It’s like they had no money.”

“No money for what?” asked Jin.

“Money for production, design. Money for talent, either.”

“This is really sad,” said J-Hope.

They checked the other exhibits, and found much the same thing. Not a single one of the groups had any kind of substance to them.

“Let’s move on,” said RM.

They found a connecting passage to the next chamber. It was almost identical to the first, but the groups here had a somewhat different problem.

“Wow. Some of these girls aren’t that bad, it’s just whoever managed them must’ve been cursed,” opined Jin.

“Cursed?” asked RM.

“It’s like, you can see what they were going for, and the idea is sound, they just didn’t know quite how to pull it off.”

“I think I know what you mean,” said J-Hope.

RM nodded. “Let’s move on. I don’t know how many more of these I can stand.” He glanced over at the one they had just watched, and was taken aback.

Each one of the girls was staring at him with tears in their eyes.

“Can they hear us?” he whispered. But the others were already going ahead, and he had to hurry a bit to catch up to them.

They passed through several more such chambers, and grew ever more disappointed in the experience. In some of them they came close, so close, to liking what they heard and saw, but never did it cross the threshold of success. When they finally reached the end, they were glad, though it et at their minds to know more was to come.

Daewang greeted them. She had changed from her pink rabbit head to one that was midnight blue. She examined her fingernails, freshly polished in a matching hue.

_ “WeLcoMe baCK. LEaRn aNyTHinG?”_

The Boys curtly nodded yes.

_ “oNE doWn, TWO to GO.”_

They left her and proceeded down the passage to the Hall of Futility.

***

The chambers here had a rather different design than the other hall. The rooms were made of bare stonework, without any chandeliers, and a single tiny window let sunlight in. It was nice to see the wholesome sunbeams it created, but RM noticed the light never reached the alcoves. The people in them, if that’s what they were, would never be touched by that light.

“Let’s see what we’ve got this time,” said Jin.

They settled in to watch the first show, and were stunned. It was actually pretty good. Not great, but not bad, either. The experience was soon repeated again and again. RM couldn’t quite grasp the significance, however.

“Okay, I get it that these groups are better than the others, but why are they kept separate? What’s the fundamental difference between them?”

“I don’t know,” said J-Hope, “but it must have something to do with the names of the different areas. Mediocrity? Futility? Honestly, it seems so subjective.”

RM didn’t say anything, and all Jin could do was act out the shrug emoji, so they moved on.

There was something different in the next chamber, however. Instead of a set of dioramas, it was a good-sized auditorium. Down on the stage, a woman performed with a cast of dancers. The Boys were surprised as their outfits changes colors before their very eyes.

They heard crying. There was another woman sitting in a seat in the shadows near one of the exits. She was wearing normal clothes, and they rushed over to talk to her.

“Hey, are you okay, ma’am?” asked RM.

The woman, not taking her eyes off the performance, simply shook her head.

“What’s wrong, miss?” asked J-Hope.

She pointed down at the stage.

“Ma’am,” said Jin, “may I ask, what is your name?”

The woman took a moment to respond.

“_Coco_,” she breathed.

“Coco,” said Jin, nodding. “If I may, can I ask why you’re crying?”

_“Listen,”_ she whispered.

They did not understand at first, for all they could hear was the performance winding down. But soon it started up again, and they sat down to give it their full attention.

The song the woman on the stage sang was different from most of the music they had heard before. Granted, they had made a point in their careers to include messages in their work, but maybe they were too young yet, too successful, to have felt what she now conveyed.

She sang about seeing herself in the mirror, asking herself if it was time to give up. They could feel the regret and heartache in her voice, but the hope and determination as well. By the time the song was over, they were thunderstruck. How could something so moving have gone unnoticed for so long? It was so unjust.

The performance over, the curtain came down and the house lights came on. These were normal electric lights, RM was pleased to see. He turned to ask Coco who that woman was, but Coco was gone.

“This is so surreal,” said RM.

“Yeah, you said it,” agreed J-Hope.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Jin.

***

They found more chambers to pass through, but these ones were rather dreary. Either the sun was going down outside, or the rooms were not positioned correctly to get much light in through their tiny windows. Either way, they had an abandoned feel to them, made all the stronger by the fact that none of the dioramas were active on this side. Many of them simply had their curtains drawn, and barriers placed across. Others were left completely open with no one home.

It was downright spooky.

They hurried along, certain that there could not have been any more to see, and eager to finish this leg of their journey. RM had only just started to wonder why they hadn’t run into any of the others when the three of them encountered something completely incongruous in the next room.

It was a bright red food truck.

The smells of food assailed their nostrils while the sounds of cooking pleasured their ears. RM could only wonder at what the truck was doing here. The chambers in this Hall resembled rooms in some Medieval European monastery more than anything else. How did they even get the truck in here in the first place?

Jin called out, “Hello? Anybody there?”

“Customers!” cried out a female voice. It seemed somewhat familiar to RM.

The shutter on the side of the truck flew open, and the Boys were bathed by the warm light within. In a moment their eyes adjusted, and they recognized the proprietor.

“Cao Lu?” offered J-Hope.

“Yes, and—oh! You’re BTS! Or at least some of BTS.”

The Boys sidled over to the truck’s counter.

“You can call me Lulu,” said Cao Lu. “Today’s special is noodles and pork. Want some?”

The Boys hadn’t realized how hungry they were. They eagerly nodded yes, then tried to produce their wallets.

“Uh, sorry Miss Lulu,” explained RM. “We didn’t expect to come here today, and we seem to have left our money at home.”

Cao Lu sighed. “No one ever spends enough money here,” she reported glumly.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” asked Jin.

“Yeah,” added J-Hope. “Wouldn’t it be better to set up down in the street?”

She looked at each of them. “Don’t you know? I’m here because I was in Fiestar.”

The Boys blinked. “You were in what?” asked RM.

“_Exactly_,” said Cao Lu. She leaned onto the countertop, resting her head against her right hand.

The Boys heard sobbing coming from behind them. They left the truck and approached the curtain covering one of the diorama alcoves. RM heard Cao Lu exit the truck and follow them. Secretly he was happy that she wasn’t going to creep up on them like that damned rabbit-girl.

They paused in front of the curtain, until Jin finally mustered up the courage to pull it wide open.

The scene here was not from a music video. Briefly it made RM think of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically the historically styled bedrooms in one part of the vastness of it. But then he realized it was too modern, more like the darkened set of a television show.

They watched as a crying woman sat up in bed.

“Jei’s been trying to get into more and more shows,” explained Cao Lu. “I haven’t seen any of them lately, and I hate to say it but her acting was never that good. Except for this one scene.”

They watched as Jei got out of bed.

“I think, maybe the reason she was so convincing here, was because it came from her heart.”

They saw Jei move a chair to the center of the room. She stood on top of it, and began to do something to the light fixture on the ceiling.

_“No! Don’t do it!”_ Jin leapt over the railing and into the diorama itself. He reached Jei before she could place the noose around her neck, and swept her into his arms, bringing her back to the others.

“My Prince Charming,” she muttered sadly.

“Mr. Worldwide Handsome,” said Jin, but no one laughed.

RM felt Cao Lu’s hand caress his face.

“I wish we could meet you out there,” said Cao Lu. She was crying. “But I wish a lot of things.”

RM was confused. “Why can’t we meet each other outside?”

But Cao Lu shook her head. “This part of us…it will always be here.”

Jin set Jei down on her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s time for you to go.”

“I don’t understand,” said Jin.

“You will. All of you.”


	4. Chapter 4

This time, Daewang was wearing a bloodred outfit.

“Why do you keep changing your appearance?” asked RM.

_“i wAnT to BE_ aPrOpOs,” answered Daewang.

“But what about the others? Are you changing for each of them? Isn’t that difficult?”

_“No.”_ And she said nothing more on the matter.

***

The three of them made their way down the last corridor, the one the rabbit had called the “Hell of the Sponsored.” Unlike the other two, RM had an idea of what that might mean. In Korea, “_sponsorship_” was a euphemism for idols being forced into prostitution to pay back their debts to their companies. But it was not something he liked to think about, let alone discuss with the others. So he kept his mouth shut about it.

The chambers on this side of the Museum did not contain any diorama alcoves. Instead, each chamber was like a single exhibit you could walk through. The first room was a noraebang bar and a restaurant. Businessmen sat with much younger women, and RM swore some of them might have been underage. Others were fleetingly familiar, and a few tried to catch his eye. But he said nothing to them, and kept walking.

In the next room, they could hear the sounds of sex, but it was too dark and smoky to see very well. RM was glad of that, especially when the moans turned into screams of pain, the grunts into laughter. He began to panic, and ran ahead. He refused to look to either side, concentrating on hurrying along the path. He could hear the others keeping up behind him.

“Oh god, the smell!” exclaimed J-Hope.

RM couldn’t help himself. He took in a deep draught, and almost gagged.

“B-blood!” he sputtered out.

***

They returned to the stairs much sooner than they had anticipated. Daewang was now wearing a white rabbit head, and a blue blouse and skirt with gold trim that reminded RM of old-fashioned marching band uniforms. Behind her sat the other four members, on a new set of stairs leading upward that RM could have sworn weren’t there before.

Once he had caught his breath, he asked her about them.

_“of CoURse tHey’Ve ALLwaYs bEEn tHeRe,”_ she replied. _“you jUsT weEREn’t lookING fOr tHeM.”_

She started climbing the stairs while RM’s mind was still too busy trying to catch up with that answer.

_ “THiS wAY, gEnTs.”_

They followed her, and only stopped when they encountered people sitting on the stairs about halfway up. There were twelve females all together, dressed in black pants with black, frilly blouses. RM was struck by how elegant they looked. Some of them were playing with butterflies in their hands, and three or four of them had mismatched colored eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

One of them turned and looked him directly in the eyes. She spoke in perfect English, “We don’t belong down there. One of these days, we’re gonna make it up top. Before you know it.”

Then they were past them, and Daewang stopped before a set of white double doors. Turning around, she told them, _“beHOLd! tHis IS the haLL of THE AscEnDaNT.”_

She opened the doors wide, and the Boys were delighted at what they found inside. Here there were large, high windows letting in plenty of sunlight, and each diorama was a full-sized stage. The groups here were mostly well-known to BTS, and their different, simultaneous performances clashed wonderfully with each other.

RM noticed how happy the lot of them seemed to be, to have their dreams come true. But as he looked closer, he saw some idols on their breaks, looking sullen and unhappy. It brought one word to his mind.

“_Disillusionment_,” he muttered out loud. J-Hope next to him turned and said, “What?” But apparently Daewang had somehow heard him clearly, because she turned and bowed her head to him.

At long last they crossed the vast Hall, to the place where Twice perpetually battled Black Pink. They dueled on stages that had once been home to the Wonder Girls, 2NE1, and way-back-when groups like S.E.S. and Fin.K.L. Girls Generation watched eagerly from the sidelines, having had to give up their spot to Twice in recent years. Privately they wondered if their labelmates would ever catch up. Red Velvet was much further back than they would have liked, and f(x) was nowhere to be found.

RM could never quite keep straight the different members of Twice. He did know that there were nine of them, so he was surprised to find only eight on stage. He looked around to see where the final girl could be, but he only saw a lone figure weeping in the shadows between this stage and the previous.

“We don’t know how to help her,” said a voice over his shoulder. He turned around to see one of the shorter members of Twice sitting on the edge of their stage.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said the girl. RM was struck by her short hair and peculiar sense of fashion. Whatever it was, she set off some kind of alarm bell in his mind.

“It’s not like you can help anyone here, anyway. But if things don’t improve, she could end up downstairs. Or worse.”

As RM tried to think of anything reassuring to say, J-Hope opened his mouth.

“You know what? You ladies should go on Ellen. It’s like being on Hello Counselor, but worth it. Besides, she might be right up your alley.”

A twinge of fear haunted the girl’s face for a second. She looked away, then stood up and rejoined her friends.

“What’s with her?” asked J-Hope.

RM thought he had an idea, but chose not to share it. Even the most successful of idols had to hide their pain.

Past Twice and Black Pink was a final set of steps. It led up to a huge, gilded set of doors, and when those two girl groups finally took their break, they both eyed it jealously.

Daewang gestured towards the doors. _“YoNDer LIES the piNNacLe oF tHe MUSEeuM. WhAT dO yOu tHinK yOuLLl fiNd THerE?”_

RM said, “Well, isn’t Twice the most popular girl group?” (Black Pink overheard and stared daggers at him.) “If they’re here, then I’ve got no idea who would be above them.”

Daewang laughed coldly. _“I’ll GiVe you A hiNt. thE gRouP iN tHErE is SO poPuLaR, wE hAd to BUILD on to THE MuSEum ITself. It stRadDLes bOTh the maLe aNd fEmAle wiNgs, anD as THEY aRe unTOUCHed by BuRniNg SuN, it HAs noT BEen sEaLed OFF.”_

“I guess that means it’s us,” said Jimin nonchalantly. He was quite correct.

“Wait a second,” said V. “If the museum has only male and female wings, then what about coed groups?”

Daewang laughed again. _“The oNLY coED gROup worTH a DAMN is K.a.R.d. TheY’vE gOt tHeiR OWN siDe bALcoNy soMeWheRe. noW COME aLOnG.”_

They followed her up to and through the gilded doors. Inside, they found a moving montage of all their best music videos, manned by their very own doppelgangers. Their outfits and hair styles morphed between each stage set, and the effect mesmerized them.

“How are we here,” asked Suga, “and at the same time, over there?”

“Maybe anything’s possible here,” said Jungkook.

_“NO,”_ said Daewang. _“If THAT weRe TRuE, thEn aLL tHOse poOR loST soULs down BELOW would nOT bE suFFeriNg SO.”_

“Then how do you explain this?” asked Jimin.

_ “EaSiLy. not EVERYthing is poSSibLe HEre, oNLy wHaT is _NECESSARY_.”_

“You know, guys,” said Jin, ignoring everyone else, “I’ve said this before, but now I really mean it: I look real good.”

The joke fell flat, and no one laughed. It polled so terribly, in fact, that RM was able to pull himself away from the spectacle and take a look around. He saw that there were the biggest windows yet in here, so low to the ground that you could step right through them. Outside, he could see a different city of the world in each one. Here was New York, there was Paris. It made him think of the portals connecting the different sanctums in _Doctor Strange_. He tried to see how many windows on the world there were, but he lost count.

“What does this mean?” he asked.

_ “NoT gOOd with mEtaPHoRs, aRe yOu? At leAst YOU haVe the rEsT of YOUR liVEs to fiGUre IT oUt.”_

***

Many years later, after BTS finally broke up and the members went their separate ways, the memory of the Museum haunted RM’s dreams from time to time. During his first term as Korea’s youngest-ever President, he managed to organize a reunion at the Blue House. The others had become C.E.O.s of their own labels, or chairmen of various charities renowned the world over.

They gathered for their first meal together in ages, and RM couldn’t help but notice a silent tension in the room. The others were shunning Suga, and RM didn’t know why. So he took him aside and asked him in private.

Suga stroked his thin, salt-and-pepper beard in thought. “Do you remember, all those years ago, the Museum of Hope and Despair?”

RM’s blood ran cold. He had always tried to tell himself it hadn’t been real. But now Suga was talking about it. You couldn’t have shared dreams, could you?

Suga didn’t wait for his response. “I’d been talking to the others over the years. I hadn’t gotten to you yet, because you’d gotten so busy with politics.”

RM nodded.

“The thing is, I was always certain that it was real, and more importantly, _I found us a way to get back._”

The color rose in RM’s face. Suga was sure he was about to be rejected again, but he could handle it. It had happened five times before.

“Yungi,” said RM, “I believe you.” Suga’s face soared. “The trouble is, I don’t want to go back.”

Suga sputtered. “Why not?”

“We only had a glimpse of it, and that was enough for me. Who knows what been going on there all these years. Humanity certainly hasn’t improved.”

“But that’s why I want to go back!” The need filled Suga’s eyes. “Last time, we had such a tailored visit. But if I can come and go freely, I can learn so much, and share it with the world! I mean, the Museum’s got to exist for some reason, right? What’s the point of having it if no one can visit?”

Try as he might, Suga could not elicit anything other than moral support from RM. The rest of the visit was cordial enough, and they parted ways once more.

Some time later, their old boss from Big Hit Entertainment finally passed away. The former members of BTS made the time to attend the funeral, all except Suga. When RM looked into his absence, he was shocked to find that his old friend had disappeared without a trace shortly after their reunion.


End file.
